The 2026 season for DC United wasn’t a successful one. They tied a Major League Soccer record when they failed to qualify for the playoffs for the seventh straight season, finishing 28th out of 30 teams in the league and 14th out of 15 teams in the Eastern Conference. On Friday, a day before their final match of the season, managing director of soccer operations Erkut Sogut and captain Lucas Bartlett faced the media to answer questions about a difficult season that ended on Saturday with a season finale loss to New York City FC.

Sogut, taking the first series of questions, accepted responsibility for the team failing to reach the postseason.

“Of course, [I’m] not happy with where we are today…and I’m also here today because I’m responsible for that, right? And I take full responsibility of the situation where we are,” Sogut said. “And but one thing that changes definitely to the culture. We have a team that fights more. That’s what I wanted when I came here and we implemented certain things which created this culture of, you know, giving up anymore. We have seen it during a couple of games, it was home against Nashville, but coming back, it’s a bank. we’re fighting. But what we need to do next is making these fighting into wins. And I think that’s the next space.”

The club struggled to keep some key players on the field all season long, including their two Designated Players, Louis Munteanu and Tai Baribo. When they were on the field, two of the biggest signings in club history had their individual successes. Baribo led the team with 16 goals, while Munteanu had 10 goal contributions (6 goals, 4 assists). However, the two also combined to miss 22 matches during the regular season. In total, the team failed to score goals at a clip that can win games, as their 39 total goals was second-worst in the league behind CF Montréal.

The two DPs weren’t the only players who struggled with injuries. Down the stretch, injuries to Sean Johnson, Jackson Hopkins, and Hosei Kijima contributed to the teams struggles, though Sogut did not use the injuries to excuse the team’s form late in the season. “[Every] team has injuries, but we felt it…still we have to win. It shouldn’t be an excuse,” Sogut remarked.

That affected what already a thin roster and stretched them beyond their limits. Lucas Bartlett, who was also injured for the finale against NYCFC, mentioned he had been playing through nagging injuries that had limited his play.

“Yeah, I’ve got a stress reaction in a leg right now,” Barlett said of his injury. “So I tried to take it day by day. So it’s something we’re monitoring right now.”

The number of injuries and lack of depth (or “quality,” as head coach René Weiler used to describe the lack of capable talent) has brought the club’s lack of a MLS Next Pro team back to the forefront. A year ago, DC United majority owners Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan said the club was focused on forming a partnership with an existing MLS Next Pro team for the 2026 season while they worked to get one of their own. Back then, they cited the “real disadvantage” of not having a MLS Next Pro team while lauding the advantages they felt sending players to USL Championship teams like Loudoun United had on a player’s development. A year later, there still is no MLS Next Pro affiliation, and Sogut indicated that there are no imminent plans for that to change and the club is satisfied with its current setup.

“We got our 1st team training with us and starting and getting minutes, and that’s the goal is a direct pathway, actually,” Sogut said of not having a MLS Next Pro partnership. “Some might see there’s a disadvantage, not having an MLS Next Pro team, but in this case, the good ones, they’re joining right away with the 1st team and they are with us.”

“[We] have this fantastic opportunity to set our young players to play USL football. Of course, in the future, I don’t know…[an MLS Next Pro] team, it can happen. I don’t know the timeline for that. And I’m not complaining about that. For me, it’s like, ‘Hey, if the academy plays good, join the 1st team, train every day.’ And a lot of the players like that…We will see more academy players join us in the future, and that’s one of the changes I wanted to bring on this call as well, that we have to get more from our own, from the academy and give them the chance to play, to develop, and be the face of DC United in the future.”

Sogut was also asked about the evaluation of the coaching staff, led by head coach René Weiler, as the offseason begins. He said that everyone needed to be accountable and that everything would be evaluated.

“First of all, I’m always behind my players. I always back my players and I’m always behind my staff, my coaches. But everyone has to be accountable, including me,” Sogut said. “That should be the culture…So someone doesn’t do his job in the best way, in the best interests for his club, should be removed, should go..That’s how football works. And as I said in the beginning, I’m responsible for the situation today. It hurts, I don’t want to be in this situation in terms of we miss the playoffs, but it is fact. And moving forward, we’ll sit down with ownership. We will make decisions after the season and to decide what we will do, and that includes players, coaches, and staff so everyone is accountable.”

René Weiler, asked about his own future after the match on Saturday, left the question to Sogut and the owners. “I’m not the person to respond to that question,” Weiler said. “I know what I have to do and I know what I have and what we have to do…But that is not a question for me….I have my plan. I stick to that plan, and I try to perform and to achieve our targets.”

Lucas Bartlett, when told that Sogut mentioned that accountability has to be a part of the equation for the club, said “I feel the same way. Those are key points. Accountability for sure. Number one, I put my hand up, mistakes I’ve made. decisions I’ve had in the season. I’m the 1st person if I make a mistake or do something wrong in a game or make the right decision, wrong decision on the field, that I try to correct that and it takes a lot of accountability and self-reflection to do that. And I’m working on it.”

“We are fighting. We are giving everything we have…And we’re all competing. We’re all trying to win games. None of us want to says to the fans that we don’t want to make it to the playoffs or don’t want to fulfill their dreams of winning another championship. That’s what we want.”

The evaluations begin now for a club that is desperate to turn it around with a short offseason. DC United must announce their roster decisions with regards to contract options by November 25th, and then they will turn to the offseason with the MLS Superdraft, the Re-Entry Draft, free agency, and the transfer window. Weiler says the club needs “starters” to help turn it around. Sogut says that while he was happy with the signings that they had during the season, “we need the depth as well, which something I realized during the season.” It all points to a sprint season in the spring where each club will only have 14 matches, but may be arguably the most important season in club history as it tries to reshape its place in the MLS landscape. Otherwise, it will continue to further fade into MLS obscurity as more ambitious clubs continue remove the old Black-and-Red legacy from American soccer memory.

“For me, every game matters. So we need to get out there and try to win every game, each of them,” Sogut replied. “So that that culture, that belief, is there. The player’s momentum, I can feel it, we just have to make it happen. And so for me, the spring season is very important.”